So, we finally found one thing that happened under Clinton that the Bush administration didn't work immediately to undo... wonder why? ___________ February 16, 2007 Another Energy Inquiry on Royalties Collection By EDMUND L. ANDREWS WASHINGTON, Feb. 15 — Top Democrats on the Senate Energy Committee, citing widespread management problems at the Interior Department, ordered a new inquiry on Thursday into the department’s fast-growing program to collect billions of dollars worth of oil and gas from companies that drill on public territory. The inquiry, to be conducted by the Government Accountability Office, will come on top of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department into allegations that the program’s director earned money as a consultant to companies that were seeking to resell the government oil. Other investigations are under way by the Interior Department’s inspector general and Congressional committees into complaints about mismanagement, weak enforcement and a leasing blunder in the 1990s that could cost taxpayers $10 billion in lost royalties over the next decade. The new line of scrutiny comes from Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, and Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, chairman of the subcommittee on public lands. The two senators asked the G.A.O. to analyze the so-called royalty-in-kind program, under which the Interior Department collects a share of the oil and gas that companies produce on federal property and then resells it on the open market to generate cash. Bush administration officials have called the program a simpler and more efficient way for the government to collect royalties on the vast amounts of oil and gas produced on public lands. The Interior Department currently collects about $4 billion in royalties in the form of oil and gas, mostly from the Gulf of Mexico. Administration officials want to double that volume and collect about 80 percent of all offshore royalties “in kind” by 2009. In a letter to the accountability office, the senators noted that it had made two attempts to evaluate the program’s cost-efficiency, in 2003 and 2004, but had been unable to get reliable data from the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service. “The royalty-in-kind program raised flags during the G.A.O.’s last review, and now the inspector general tells us that a criminal investigation is under way,” Senator Wyden said. “The fact that the Interior Department would now take steps to expand this program defies logic.” In their letter, the lawmakers ordered the office to dissect the program’s administrative costs as well as its effectiveness at tasks normally handled by oil companies, like transporting and marketing oil. Almost one-quarter of the oil and gas produced in the United States comes from federal land or federal coastal waters. Under the law, companies that drill on federal leases must pay the government a royalty, normally 12 to 16 percent of sales. Last year, those royalties totaled about $10 billion. But royalty revenues have climbed more slowly than oil prices over the last six years, and the Interior Department has come under heavy criticism for lax enforcement, cutbacks in auditing and murky valuation rules that enable companies to reduce their payments. Last year, administration officials said that a leasing blunder during the Clinton administration was likely to cost taxpayers up to $10 billion in royalties over the next decade. House and Senate Democrats are now grappling with proposals to renegotiate the flawed leases, but the Bush administration contends that the government cannot pressure companies into revising their terms. Interior officials, along with many industry executives, contend that the royalty-in-kind program is a simpler way to collect royalties because it eliminates many of the accounting battles that have stymied auditors for years. But investigators for the G.A.O. said in 2003 and 2004 that they simply could not get enough accurate data to know whether the government was saving any money. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/16/w...&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
Who needs the IPCC when Bush's cronies are shredding papers? I recommend a training a hawk or a pet owl.
Not the sexiest topic, but a critical one for our democracy... and I don't see how anyone can be for the retrictions Bush has put in place...
Sounds like the Credit Card companies are peddling backward to keep the gifts handed them by the Bankruptcy Bill.
